


Everything is Blue

by Catzgirl



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: AU, Eventual Happy Ending, Lance disappears instead of Shiro, Langst, M/M, Slow Burn, but for now it's just, do I still have to tag spoilers for season 2 when season 3 is almost out?, everyone sad time!, gonna try to wrap this up before season 3 comes out, i just thought about how sad it would be if Lance had gone missing instead, is literally the working title for this, klance, so i wrote a story about it, sorrynotsorry, this will eventually be
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-11-14 17:44:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11213049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catzgirl/pseuds/Catzgirl
Summary: It's over.He thinks it once as all the lions begin the trek back to the castle, all of them quiet in the aftermath of defeating Zarkon, and then he can't stop thinking it.It's over. They can focus on finding Pidge's family. Shiro can take some time away from fighting, start to heal. Hunk can go visit Shae on the Balmera. Lance can go home to his family. Allura and Coran can figure out what being the last Alteans means without the threat of the Galra shadowing over them. And Keith? He isn't sure what he'll do first, but for the first time in a year he's got the time to figure it out.





	1. Colors

**Author's Note:**

> not beta'd- let me know if you spot anything glaringly bananas.  
> spoilers for season two, I guess

It's over. 

He thinks it once as all the lions begin the trek back to the castle, all of them quiet in the aftermath of defeating Zarkon, and then he can't stop thinking it. 

It's over. They can focus on finding Pidge's family. Shiro can take some time away from fighting, start to heal. Hunk can go visit Shae on the Balmera. Lance can go home to his family. Allura and Coran can figure out what being the last Alteans means without the threat of the Galra shadowing over them. And Keith? He isn't sure what he'll do first, but for the first time in a year he's got the time to figure it out. 

It's over. 

Red guides herself into her hangar, purring somewhere deep in his mind. It thrums through him because she knows what he knows, and it's that the only certain thing is this: the war is over, but he's her Paladin for life. 

They all congregate in the command deck. The Blade of Mamora are still there. Allura and Coran, too. Hunk arrived first and gives Keith a tight smile as he approaches. Pidge and Shiro come together, tears already dripping down the youngest Paladins chin. There's a long moment where they all stand there, together, basking in what they've done. Freed the universe. Ended an empire. Saved the day- the way Lance was always saying they would. 

That's when he realizes, and his heart skips a beat, but Slav beats him to it: "Statistically, there was less than one point three three three three three thousandth of a percent that all of the Paladins would return." And it's the way that he says it, tinged with sadness rather than the manic energy they've all come to expect that makes the sudden bit of fear in Keith's chest explode into a panic. 

They're all running, then, all of the Paladins, but Keith is fastest. Pidge is shrieking Lane's name as they round the corner into Blue's hangar, and Hunk too as they stop at her paws. 

The lion's mouth is already wide open, showing off her empty cockpit, and otherwise unresponsive. Lance is nowhere in sight. 

They poke around in her cockpit anyway, as if the blue Paladin is suddenly going to appear underneath his seat, and then they split up to search different parts of the Castle. It's a big Castle, after all, and it's not as if they'd agreed to meet after the battle- they'd all just felt compelled to be together. Lance might have gone straight to his room, or to the observatory, or anywhere. 

Keith rips through his sector like a hurricane, growing steadily more frantic with every location that Lance isn't. When he runs into Shiro, he's holding a kernal of hope that someone's found their idiot casanova and just didn't say so on their coms, but one look at Shiro's face dashes it. 

"I don't understand," Keith says. At his sides, his fists clench and slacken repeatedly, resisting the urge to draw his bayard. There's no one to fight, now: no enemy, and no stupid one-sided rivalry. "It's over. Where is he?" 

Shiro doesn’t have any answers. They're all tired, but the bags under Shiro's eyes are deepest amongst them. Keith can read his brother like a book, and if this isn't a chapter on fear and guilt, he doesn't know what is. He remembers with sudden clarity: the last minutes of the battle, Shiro screaming as Zarkon fought him mind-to-mind for control of the Black Lion. The dark blast that came out of the main ship, from Zarkon or Hagar or both, that speared for the Black Lion. The Blue Lion diving in front of it, giving Shiro the time he needed to throw Zarkon out of his head. How they'd all gone silent afterward, thinking about their futures. It had felt companionable, that silence, but now Keith realizes that it's the moment that Lance went missing. Lance, who could never shut up, no matter how serious things were. How did he not suspect, in that first quiet moment? How could he have been so stupid? Would he have even noticed if it had been Shiro instead? 

As if he'd read Keith's mind, Shiro says, "It would have been me. If he hadn't taken that hit. It must have been Druid magic," and Keith's heart has been going a mile a minute but now it really kicks into overtime because _it could have been Shiro_ if Lance, stupid, glory-hungry Lance, hadn't launched between his leader and danger, and to think of losing Shiro again is enough that his body chills over with gooseflesh. 

The walk back to the command deck is tense. 

Pidge is crying in earnest now, and so is Hunk. The galra from the Blade of Mamora looks distinctly uncomfortable, all of them standing near the back wall and well away from the grieving paladins. Allura and Coran are pouring over a map so that's who Keith heads for, Shiro making a beeline to Pidge and Hunk instead. 

"Try, Princess," Coran is saying as Keith angles himself to better see the galaxies spread out in their hologram, "Your quintessence is linked to theirs. Wherever Lance is, you should be able to sense him." 

"I _am_  trying," she answers. She's been through the wringer, too, Keith thinks. Her hair, normally so meticulous, is only half-up still. She had been battling Hagar while they fought Zarkon. She looks ready to topple over from exhaustion and could probably spend some time in healing pod- who knows what that Druid crap does to a body? "I can't feel him. I can only feel the Blue Lion." 

"Does that mean-" and Keith cuts himself off, can't stand to finish the sentence. 

Allura catches his meaning but doesn't look away from the map, doesn't stop scrolling through the galaxies in front of her, "No. If he were, I would know. I'm certain of that, at least." 

"Maybe you need to rest," Shiro says. Hunk and Pidge are also approaching, still red-eyed and teary. "You might be too exhausted to sense anything. We'll each talk to our lions, ask them to talk to Blue. She's the only one that knows what happened when that blast of magic hit her." 

"I can also try to make another quintessence tracker," Hunk offers, "Like the one I made on Earth that found Blue. Now that we know they have the same quintessence, I can maybe make some adjustments to track Lance instead of giant-space-kitty." 

It's as good of a plan as they're going to get. 

He isn't sure where the Blade of Mamora go- if they leave or find some spare rooms- but they disappear without comment. Hunk heads directly to his workspace- he isn't bonded well enough to his lion yet that they can talk in any meaningful way. The rest of them head to their own hangars. 

As soon as he walks in, he can feel that Red is not the contented, purring cat that he'd stepped out of not an hour ago. Her particle barrier isn't up, but there's something vaguely hostile about her, something even more tense than his high-strung partner usually is. 

"Easy girl," he soothes, approaching slowly. 

A low growl is his response, and the part of his mind reserved for her presence starts to shift. She's trying to show him something, but all he gets is a feeling of emptiness. 

"What do you wanna say?" He asks, reaching one hand for one of her enormous paws. Sometimes just proximity to her makes their bond feel stronger, but Red's not in the mood for it; she backs away from his open palm. "What's the matter? It's all dark on my end." 

He tries to loop back the blank picture she's sent him, to show her that whatever she's trying to communicate isn't coming through, but her mood upticks and she sends a flow of positive energy through their bond, as though it's exactly what she meant. 

Talking to Red is generally like that: feelings and pictures, no real words. It's never been so frustrating, not since they first started to talk to each other, but he does his best to tell her that he still doesn't understand. 

So she sends him a wall: stone and strong and unending. Then she sends him Blue, but the Blue Lion as the Lions see each other. Blue doesn't seem so large through Red's eyes, and the laser cannons on her back are less prominent. She's preternaturally still- not a dead beast, but a predator ready to pounce. There's energy to her that he can sense, through Red, that he hadn't noticed when he'd been in front of her. Her eyes are what draw Keith- what Red is trying to show him is that her eyes are flat, lightless, empty. She sends him the wall again: nothing in, nothing out. 

He thinks he understands, now. 

"You can't talk to her," he says. Red doesn't purr, still too agitated, but she does inch close enough to touch. "What does it mean? Why won't she respond?" 

Nothing but fire from Red- angry and uncertain and all consuming. 

He can feel her reach out to the other lions, and starts to sense the other Paladin's through them. Hunk is missing- tinkering with his quintessence tracker, Keith reminds himself- but Yellow is a solid, anchoring presence; upset but not overcome, like a pillar of strength. Green is tinged over with despair, like Pidge, and he gets the sense of wilting from them, lack of sun and growth. Black and Shiro are all worry but quite calm, and Black's thoughts to Blue are insistent but not panicked. Blue is there, but not there. He can feel her, still lying in her hangar, mouth spread to show her empty cockpit, but there's no sea breeze emanating from her, no gull-cry. As if a wall surrounds her, like Red tried to show him, he can feel her basic shape but nothing else. A husk, a vessel, a carrier with no cargo. She's in there, somewhere, but the walls are stronger than Keith can manage and even Black isn't having any luck. 

Red shows him: a windswept desert, an eroding landscape, and he understands that all it takes is time. It's time that they don't have _it could have been Shiro_  but it wasn't. Lance might be in danger and he might not be. All is takes is time and Keith wants to scream- Red begins to purr in understanding because, yes, exactly, that's what she's been telling him since he walked through the door. They are fire things; they were not meant to wait. 

He goes back to his room, deliberately holding tight to the part of Red that's in his mind, wanting an instant update on Blue's condition. He takes a shower and shucks his armored suit onto his small sitting table and collapses in the bed. 

Red sends him a dying campfire, coals cooling, steam wafting into the air. 

He's out before his head hits the pillow. 


	2. The Water That Listens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Paladins are starting to slip, emotionally. One week after Lance's- disappearance? Kidnapping? And they're no closer to finding him. Everyone is coping in their own ways, and everyone is falling apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys are literally too kind with your comments and kudoses, I have been blushing nonstop! Thanks for the positive feedback, it goes a long way <3  
> I guess now is a good time to mention that I headcanon that each season of the show happened roughly over the course of a year, so they've been off-earth for almost 2 years now here. I don't think there's anything canon to back me up, it's just an approximation.  
> This chapter is kinda filler-y. I'm still working out Keith's voice. I feel like I make him talk too much?

He's back in the training room within the week. 

Even with rest, Allura can't sense Lance. Like, anywhere. He's not dead, she's sure, but he's not anywhere that she can locate either. Like the Blue Lion that first night: there-and-not-there, a presence in her mind but unreachable. It might be that he's literally too distant, wherever he is. It might be something else. 

Hunk can't get his radar thing to work, either. Every time he turns it on, it leads him straight to the Blue Lion. He tried building one from scratch, thinking that maybe using a machine previously meant to work with the signals only Blue sends out had modified his tech somehow (honestly anytime Hunk talks about anything other than food, it kinda goes over Keith's head, and even food isn't always an safe topic,) but that didn't work either. Hunk suspects that they might need to land, get some distance between his tech and the Blue Lion, before he can make any headway. Pidge has been scrolling through all the data they've amassed so far from the galra, looking for a mention of the druids, what their magic can do, but it's been a dead-end so far. Even other galra fear the druids, there's hardly any mention of them. Shiro's been cooped up with Black, spending their energy trying to coax Blue into lowering her mental shields. 

So Keith's been training. There's not really anything to train for anymore, but it works off his frustration and- yeah, alright, he feels more than a little helpless. Lance disappeared out from under them without a trace and they don't even know why they don't know where he is. When they were separated by the corrupted wormhole last year, it was a matter of hours, less than a full day, before they were all reunited. They haven't been apart for this long since this whole space-adventure started, and it's quickly becoming apparent that Lance was the glue holding them together. 

Coran wanders the Castle of Lions at odd hours. He does his usual repair work, but now he talks out loud to himself- about Altea, about the late King Alfor, about all the friends he's made and the families he's chosen throughout the years; and it's only now that they realize that Lance has been following him around providing assistance and a sympathetic ear this entire time. Allura misses the predictability of Lance's harmless, fruitless, but distracting flirting- there's nothing, now, to distract her from the grief she still feels for her father and her planet. Hunk can't focus on anything but his new radar, where Lance was the one to cajole him into new recipes and bonding with Yellow. Pidge is likewise consumed in her work, and the other's have to take turns now carrying her back to her room as Lance isn't up pretending to play video games to do it. Shiro and Keith still have each other, that essential brotherly bond that Keith has come to rely on, but Shiro's worn around the edges with guilt and Keith can't stop seeing flashes of Lance in his peripheral- following him, trying to rile him up, trying to train with him and beat him and always pushing him to be better. 

The Castle feels empty without his loudmouth antics. 

Keith goes to Shiro's room. The Black Paladin is actually there, apparently in need of a break from the mental strain. He's sitting at his table with a bowl of food goo in front of him as if he made the decision to eat but hasn't gotten around to actually doing it yet. Keith goes straight to the neatly made bed and curls up on his side facing the wall. 

When they were kids he'd sneak into Shiro's room during the night just to make sure he was still there- terrified that his new family would vanish into thin air. He hasn't done it in years, definitely not while they were at the Garrison. It still feels familiar, somehow, as Keith takes deep breaths and says, "We gotta go looking for him. Sitting in here isn't doing us any good." 

Shiro heaves a sigh. Keith doesn't look, doesn't want to see the bags under his eyes or the tremors in his human hand. He can't stand the guilt anymore because _it could have been Shiro_  and wouldn't they have found him by now? Would they try harder if it was Shiro out there instead? If they're doing everything they can to find Lance, then why haven't they found him yet? 

"We're landing today, to get Hunk whatever he needs for his tracker," Shiro says, "While we're down there, we need to make contact with the locals. They might have seen or heard something. We can set up a contact protocol with them in case Lance shows up after we've left." 

That's the hope making the rounds of the Castle- that Lance was blasted out of his lion and is evading capture somehow. It's the option they're choosing to believe because they haven't been able to find whatever's left of the galra empire- they've brought the area Zarkon's flagship was occupying up on their radars and-nothing. After the Castle of Lions warped away, it looks like what was left of the Empire turned tail, too. Surely, they reason, if Lance had been captured the galra would have attempted to ransom him by now? Shiro's the one they want, or Allura. They wouldn't just silently hold him prisoner for a week. Right? 

"What planet are we landing on?" There'd been nothing near that final battle, just empty space and galra. 

"It's... it's not funny, but." 

Keith rolls over to face him, voice flat, "What?" 

Shiro gives him a thin smile, an attempt at humor, "Black showed me that the planet she came from, it was the galra's homeworld. The planet we're going to land on is Blue's." Keith's still frowning, so Shiro's forces a bigger smile, more hopeful, "If Lance got blasted out of her magically, maybe... maybe she sent him home." 

"That's stupid," he snaps, unable to hold it in, "He got hit by Hagar, who might be Altean. She might have sent him to where Altea used to be. Or just beamed him onto their ship. Or anywhere! If Blue had anything to do with it, she would have told us by now." 

Shiro's always been a good brother. Even though they're not brothers at all- not really. He's always been the one to put on a smile and do what needs to be done. Maybe it's the galra in him- but Keith just can't play along. Shiro doesn't let up, though, just shrugs and says, "It's worth a shot, Keith. It's all we've got. I know you and Lance didn't always get along," and that's enough for Keith to just- to just want to leave. He sits up, intending to do so, but hesitates before actually standing because Shrio continues, "But Hunk and Pidge were really close to him. They need some reassurance that we're doing whatever we can. And besides, it's an ocean planet. He was always talking about how much he missed the beach." 

And it sucks, it sucks so much, because Keith wants to just tell him. Wants to tell him all his secrets and all his hurts and confusions like when they were kids, just spill his entire soul.  

He stands, and heads to the door. Shiro's got enough to worry about, lately. They've all seen him- prowling the castle at night, just to show himself that he can, that he's not a prisoner anymore. They've all seen him get caught in the faint glowing of his galra arm- a look on his face that's equal parts exhaustion and disgust. Zarkon very nearly took Black from him a year ago when they had to rescue Allura- locked Shiro out of his own lion. Keith and Red are so closely bonded now that he can't imagine someone taking her from him, doesn't want to know what it would feel like to know that his lion's loyalty is divided. Keith's problems aren't going to change if he talks about them. Let Shiro do his own healing without having to feel like he needs to play Space Dad with all of them. 

As the door slides open he says, "It's a good plan. I'll let Hunk and Pidge know." Forces himself to say it with an even tone, but doesn't dare look back. 

Shiro's relieved sigh follows him out of the room. 

In Green's hangar, Hunk has set up shop right next to Pidge's computer, the better to help each other troubleshoot their tech. As soon as he walks in, Hunk's asking, "What's the plan? I mean, what are we gonna do? That's what you came to tell us, right, because you haven't left the training deck in like a week so I kind of figured it would take something ULTRA important to bring you all the way over here-" 

"Hunk," Pidge snaps. One of her hands goes to his shoulder and gives it a friendly pat, takes the bite out of her tone, "Let him tell us before you start freaking out over nothing." 

"Yeah," Hunk says, watching his hands now, "That makes sense. Even if you did just come to, like, hang out or whatever, that's cool too." 

Keith waits a beat, to be sure Hunk is finished, but then the big guy starts to look embarrassed, so he ends up more blurting than telling them, "We're landing on Blue's homeworld today. Shiro is hoping maybe she was able to teleport Lance there." 

The pair exchange glances; Pidge pushes her glasses further up her nose. "That," she says, "Would be extremely unlikely." 

"Yeah, man," Hunk says, rubbing the back of his head in nervous habit, "It's not like Blue blasted him out of her. He was hit with that galra junk magic or whatever." 

"And besides, Blue wouldn't be so upset if she knew where he was," Pidge says. 

These are all the same reasons Keith brought up to Shiro, but he's trying, okay? He's trying to be the leader Shiro thinks he could be. "We don't know what happened," he says, "He might have been injured and she teleported him to safety. She might have been able to change where the magic sent him. Listen, we've gotta keep up hope, right? If he's stranded on some barren planet somewhere, he's going to need some cheering up when we find him. And this way, Hunk, you'll be able to get out of the castle and work on your tracker away from Blue." 

Pidge says, as if Keith didn't speak at all, "I bet he thinks we're having a victory parade without him." 

"His birthday is next month. What if he's not back by then?" Hunk asks. 

Suddenly they're both crying and Keith- Keith is ready to go back to training. He tried to do what Shiro wanted and cheer them up and, well, look how it worked out. This is Lance's job, not his. 

"Look, guys," he tries, but Pidge wails, "I'm so tired of losing people! First Matt and Dad and people kept telling us that they died on Kerberos, they kept lying about it, and now they're alive but we still don't know where, and Lance is gone and we don't know if he's dead or what, and, and, and-" 

"He might be hurt," Hunk whispers as Pidge turns into his embrace, "He probably thinks we're not even looking for him. Allura was taken by the galra last year and we rescued her in, like, a day? It's been seven days and we still don't even know where to start looking for Lance. What if he thinks we just don't care?" 

Pidge is really crying, sobbing into Hunk's arms, and Hunk is on his way to working himself into a panic and there's a ringing in Keith's head that won't stop and Red is suddenly there, too big and too loud and concerned for him, and it's all so much that he just screams, " **Shut up**!" 

He feels bad when their heads snap to him and they go silent, even Red immediately walls herself off from his mind, and he knows he's losing his temper, but they can't just- they're so stupid! "Of course he knows we're looking for him!" He wants to rip his hair out, he wants to punch something, "He's the Blue Paladin! We can't form Voltron without him! And, just, listen to yourselves! Do you think for a second that he'd believe we don't care when we're all so miserable without him? But this isn't helping anyone! It's just making you feel worse! Sit here and mope or whatever, I'm gonna explore Blue's stupid home planet and see if he's there." 

He stomps out of the room and lets the door behind him slide closed, then leans against it and takes some deep breaths. He'll have to apologize later. They're just scared for their friend, he knows that. He hears Shiro saying _I know you didn't always get along_  and the ringing in his ears is back. He pushes off the door with a huff and turns toward the training deck, changes his mind and about faces to the observatory, changes his mind again and starts towards Blue's hangar. No one has been to see her since that first, awful day that they realized Lance was missing. 

If anyone's got answers, it's her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully that wasn't too painful. Canon- Keith was really quiet season 1, probably because everything about him was spoilery. We heard more from him during the comics and during season 2, but I still sometimes feel like I write him as too chatty. Meh.  
> also, there's not gonna be any kind of regular updates to this. I'm literally posting it as I write it. sorry!  
> scream at me on tumblr! or in the comments.


	3. The Ice That Does Not Forgive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith has a chat with the Blue Lion that gets out of hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> scream at me in the comments.  
> I know this was three chapters in three days, but school starts again on Monday so there probably won't be another one until next weekend. I thought about holding on to this one for a mid-week post but that seemed kinda mean since it's already done, so! here ya go!

There's a corner of each Paladin's mind that is reserved for their Lion. It's- difficult to explain. Keith can always _feel_  Red, like there's a tether stretched between them that transcends physics and reason. Sometimes he can follow that tether, mentally, to a place only he and Red can visit. It's like a desert, there, but more vast than the one his shack back on Earth occupied. The sky there is always twilight-orange and purple, the temperature is always that desert-dry but lessening heat: comfortable for the moment, but could spike or plummet at any second. When Red's there with him she's smaller than she is in the physical world- he can ride on her back and she takes him places. Together, they've found oasis, and rock quarries, and miles and miles of sand dunes. It's how she shows him her world and her mind, how she gives him hints to her past and memories. 

When he walks into Blue's hangar he wonders what her space in Lance's head looks like. They're the guardian spirits of water and the planet they're nearing for landing is an ocean planet, full of small islands and deep seas, but her hangar is nearly frozen over. He shivers in his thin jacket but approaches all the same. She hasn't moved, hasn't closed her cockpit. Her eyes remain dull. 

She's still watching him. He can feel it- her eyes tracking him as he advances across the room. 

When she talks to him, it's not in images and feelings. 

 _Paladin-cub_ she whispers in his mind. He'd never be able to describe that voice- it's the sound cracking ice makes, it's a woman wailing with loss, it's the cold breath that bursts from an opening cyropod. _Fireone_ _, paladin-cub Keith you came you came you came_  he's stopped moving- or she's stopped him. He can't make himself get any closer, still only halfway across the floor, and he can't move his legs but he's not entirely sure it's not due to shock. The space around Blue shines with frost and, as he watches, she takes a breath like a living thing and snaps her mouth shut. Her eyes are lifeless, still. He reaches out to her mentally, the way he would to Red, and finds her still the impassable, immovable wall that she'd been a week ago. 

 _Help him help him help him help him_  

"We don't know where he is," Keith explains, baring his palms to her as if the truth of it is there in his hands, "We need you to tell us what happened." 

 _Here_   _and not here_  footprints in fresh snow a blizzard in the mountains wide fields of ice _here and not here you cannot help him you cannot you cannot you cannot_  

She stands and Keith remembers how small he is. He thought he would come and- and make her tell him. He thought he would come and make demands of a giant, sentient space robot. He has grown complacent. He has grown incautious. 

"We can go get him- I will go get him- if you tell me where he is. Did you send him to your homeplanet? Did the galra teleport him on board?" 

Somewhere, he's thinking that to show fear is to fall. 

Somewhere, Red is tugging on their tether. 

 _Where is he?_  

It's not a question, the way she puts it. He feels like she's angry for his asking it, he feels like he should know, like the answer is obvious.  

 _You cannot you cannot you cannot help him_  

The ground beneath him freezes so suddenly that his legs go out from under him. He's still wearing his gloves so his hands don't stick to the floor when he catches himself and draws his bayard. He doesn't think Blue really means him harm- she could smash him with one paw, one blast of her laser cannon- but- 

In his head, there's Lance: talking to a giant alien dog, telling it how cool he thinks Keith is, how Keith is such a good pilot 

How he's not important to the team 

He doesn't have a "thing" a gift a purpose 

He's just a seventh wheel- what an awful wheel to be 

In his head Lance is carrying Pidge to bed and settling her down so so gently, Lance is walking back to his room and crying, Lance is dreaming of his siblings and his parents and his always-loud house 

In his head Lance is sitting at the dinner table talking about everything and nothing because, _quiznak_ , it's so quiet in this Castle that it's deafening 

Somewhere Red is tugging on their tether, Red is sending him walls and empty spaces and open skies but- 

In his head Lance is sitting in the observatory counting how many blue stars he can see, reaching out to Blue to ask- Earth? Earth? Earth? And trying not to let her feel his disappointment when the answer is no, but someday 

In his head Lance is training with the gladiator thinking- better. Better than Shiro and Keith and Allura. Better to be good enough, good enough to save the universe, good enough to go home 

In his head Lance is looking at him right after they finally got to the pool but before the alarms went off and he's telling Keith 

 _Help me help him help me help him help him help him please_  

And he hadn't realized how close she'd gotten until Red is ripping her away. 

He sucks in a hard breath, sitting flat on his ass and he doesn't know when he got that way, and the two Lions are roaring at each other hard enough to shake the Castle. Red is trying to herd Blue out of the hangar- they've landed, he can smell sea salt and brine and hear the waves crashing on the shore and all the other things he'd thought Blue's mind would be and he's- watching as Red, smaller than Blue but maybe fiercer too, slides her body between her Paladin and her sister and- Blue is still watching him but there's a shield around his mind now from his own lion and he- sees the moment she realizes it too, that she's cut off from him and roars and roars and roars and leaves. 

Red stands at the hangar doors watching her go, sends him a sweltering desert to put warmth back in his bones and the sounds of crackling fire to tell him that he's safe now and the scent of burning pine because she would do anything, she would raze the galaxy to keep him close and keep him well. 

He tells her, "I don't understand." The ice in the room is already melting, as if only Blue's proximity was keeping it solid, "She said she knows where he is. She asked me for help." 

Red does not have to turn for him to know that her eyes are flashing. She sends him, again, burning pine and then burning stone, sand that heats to glass with her fury because anything anything to keep him close and keep him well and doesn't he know that the last time she lost a Paladin she sat on a galra ship in her particle barrier for ten-thousand years out of _spite_? Because she's not going to do it a second time, no sir. She will raze galaxies until she burns herself out before she goes through that again.

"You think it's grief? Allura says he isn't-" she huffs, gently, and sends him a rising sun, the comfort of a warm bed, "Allura said she would know. Blue must just miss him." Red seems amenable enough to that, doesn't try to convince him otherwise. She tugs on their tether and reminds him- him and her, the two of them. He might reach out to Blue or to Black or to any of the others, he and the Paladins might be connected when they form Voltron but this? This is forever. No reaching required: it just is. She cannot feel Lance the way Blue can, the way Allura can, and it doesn't bother her overmuch. 

"Will you- will you help me? If I ask? It's important to me." 

She knows- sends him the warmth of understanding, a long embrace, the burn of a good day's work, stands, and leaves the hangar without comment. 

Maybe Blue will feel more at ease on her own turf. Open up to her sister-lion. 

Behind him, someone coughs politely. 

 _Oh._  

He turns as he realizes, duh, of course everyone would come see what all the roaring was about. Shiro looks pale, even Coran and Allura look concerned. 

"So, uh," Hunk asks, "What the quiznak was that all about?" 

"The Blue Lion seemed pretty pissed off at you," Pidge quips. 

"I've never heard of a Lion talking to any other Paladin before!" Coran exclaims, "This is a cause for alarm! Or maybe celebration?" 

"I just wanted to ask her what happened to Lance," Keith says, "She asked me to 'help her help him' but she didn't say how. And she-" but he stops. Blue showed him all that stuff about Lance, all that sadness and homesickness and stuff for a reason, but it probably wasn't so that he could tell everyone about it. That's Lance's business. "She seemed upset that we don't know where he is. Like it should be obvious." 

Allura sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "She knows I can sense all of you, all of them. She probably expects me to have found him by now." 

Pidge scrunches her nose, "Well, it is kinda weird that the Castle hasn't been able to pick up on him at all. Not even a generalized area. And Hunk's tracker might not be strong enough to detect through galaxies and stuff. We might have to build a bigger one." 

"We're staying on this planet until we find him or decide on a different course of action," Shiro says. "The Blue Lion will be the most comfortable here until we can find Lance and calm her more. We can't have another incident like this." 

When he looks at Keith, it's all concern and fear and yeah, okay, maybe Keith should have told someone before he decided to march in and try to boss a giant robot but? It had felt like a good idea at the time? 

Shiro's eyes wander down and Keith realizes he's still holding his bayard- like that would have done him any good. He's not Zarkon, there's no way he could have fought off a Lion on his own. He scowls at himself, and at Shiro for noticing, and sheathes it. 

"Ooookay," Pidge says, "If we're all done being awkward, Hunk and I are gonna go see if there's any civilization out there, find somewhere to set up a workstation. You know, keep trying to find Lance?" 

Keith winces with her accusing tone, feels them hit him like a physical thing, but can't respond before she's out of the room, Hunk trailing behind her with his best _I'm sorry_  eyes. Allura sighs again and shakes her head, says "I know this planet. They were once quite close with my people. I'll need to initiate contact and see what help they can provide." She breezes out, too. 

Coran looks distinctly uncomfortable with the way Shiro is still staring at Keith as though he's a ghost, but he makes an attempt at a laugh and says, "Play nicer than those Lions, you two!" before turning on a heel and practically sprinting out. 

Shiro waits until the door slides closed and they're well and truly alone before his eyes go hard with reproach. " What," he asks, "Were you thinking? You could have been killed!" 

"Yeah," Keith answers, defensive without knowing why, "But I wasn't. Someone had to talk to her about it." 

"Black and I had it under control," Shiro says, "We've been working on getting through to her all week. There was no reason for you to put yourself in danger like that." 

"You've been working on it all week and not getting anywhere!" He doesn't mean to get angry but- there it is. "He might be alone, Shiro! He might be scared or hurt or anything! We don't know! If it were you," and Keith knows even as he says it that he'll regret this later, but here? In this moment? He can't be bothered to care, so he continues, "If it were you that had gone missing, we would have found you by now! It wouldn't have taken seven days for someone to go talk to Black. None of us would have rested until we had you back." He thinks of the memories that Blue showed him, that last one by the pool, and he says, "He's just as important to this team as you are. As Allura is, or any of us. If I have to talk to Blue again, even if Red has to pin her down for me to do it, I will. It's the least of what I'd do for you." 

Too far. He's gone too far to go back. Shiro's human arm is shaking- his galra arm never shakes or wavers a bit- and his face is even paler than usual. "Of course he's important," Shiro says, pitched at a whisper, "But I can't lose you too." 

He's never cried in front of Keith before and he doesn't start now, but maybe, Keith thinks, maybe he should. Because Shiro has lost just as much as the rest of them- he was the Champion long before they were Voltron. He went to space a pilot and came back with a new scar, a new hairdo, and a new limb. Shiro lost the Holts, who were like a second family to him, and now he's lost Lance. Hell, Shiro's three families deep and losing people all the time. If anyone needs a good cry, maybe it's him. 

Of course, Keith can't actually say any of that out loud. At best, Shiro would plaster on his best Space Dad smile and just keep moving. At worst, he'd get more upset that Keith has noticed any of this. Either way, it's not going to help where they're at now. 

But getting Lance back would. 

"It really upset me," he says instead, "When you said that we didn't get along." 

Shiro blinks at him, confused, says, "What? Keith, you're my brother, we get along great-" 

"No," he corrects, "When you said earlier that you didn't think I care that much about finding Lance, because we're always arguing. The rivalry or whatever." 

"I didn't mean to imply that you don't care that he's gone," Shiro says, tone low and soothing. 

"I know but I didn't tell you- I didn't know how to-" and he clenches his fists and lets out a frustrated grunt because seriously? He has to look Shiro in the eye and explain this? 

Shiro would wait all day if that's what it took. He's started and he can't stop now, Shiro won't let him. He just stands there in front of the door, looking confused and faintly concerned over the turn the conversation has taken. 

"After the mission on Olkarion, when we tried to go swimming-" And, no, this is not going to work. Shiro is crossing his arms now and staring at him with something like disbelief and amusement. Keith is the exact same color as a tomato- as his Lion- and this is not going to work.

"I just- I just care, okay. I care that he's gone." 

"Keith, it's okay." Shiro takes a few steps forward to wrap him in a hug. He didn't realize how much he needed it, any kind of physical contact, until it's there. Lance is always touching people- on the shoulder, on the arm, when he passes by or when he's talking. Knees under tables, arm over the shoulder, squished into elevators, he's like an overly affectionate puppy that Keith thought he was annoyed by until- he wasn't. And he still hasn't told Shiro the whole of it but maybe he doesn't have to? Maybe just the bare bones of the truth are enough? He's playing this close to the chest but- 

When Lance gets back. When Lance gets back, they'll all have the time to talk and come clean. 

Shiro pulls away and pats him on the back for good measure, says, "Let's get out there and find him." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which we have a grumpy lion and a grumpy mullet. Watch out, universe!


	4. Haunting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things aren't proceeding according to plan- as usual.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys have been literally too kind with your comments, I love it! Thanks everyone that left a note, a kudos, or is reading- your support means more than I can say!  
> I listened to Now or Never by Halsey on repeat while I edited this, if that's any indication of where things are headed? I know where this is going but getting there is gonna take a bit. I don't see this having more than maybe five or six more chapters? We'll see.  
> I'm gonna try to stick to updates every weekend!

Blue sinks into the ocean and does not come back. 

The Howrians don't seem overly concerned. They go down to visit her, occasionally, to see if she needs anything, but she doesn't speak with them at all. At least, not the way that she spoke to Keith. Still, they insist, they can feel her pleasure to be home. 

It's more than any of the Lions can feel from her, but the Paladins decide not to refute the point. 

Even Allura doesn’t know exactly how old the Lions are but it's been ten thousand years at least since Blue has seen her ocean planet and it's amphibious people. The surface 90% water, dotted with islands- nothing large enough to call a continent. The Howrians live both on land and in the sea, though their sea-cities are the finer of the two, more lavish and spacious. The few above-water markets and villages that persist are mostly for the very old or the very curious, and there are few enough that the Castle was able to land without crushing any existing structures which, Slav reminds them, they should be thankful for.

The locals were a bit unnerving in the way that all the new species of aliens they'd met were. Their Queen, Ahmda, had come to meet them within an hour of their landing- confessed that she was more comfortable in the water than out of it, but that their people had no device that the Paladins could use to breathe as they did. It'd taken Coran and Hunk all of a week of puttering around the Castle to make each of them a helmet. The helmets oxidized the water- or maybe pulled oxygen from the water?- or something, but the point was that they worked and Keith was able to go see Blue for himself, as the days slogged by and his own technical ineptitude kept him from helping Pidge and Hunk.

Hunk and Pidge worked until they couldn't, and then they and Shiro and Allura and Coran went down to the deep-sea markets and palaces, delving into the rock structures and coming up into underwater cavarens and Keith- 

Trained. Mostly. He could probably beat Shiro, these days. He had Pidge switch the commands to Galran so he could start learning. He asks, once, what the Galra will do without their Emperor, and Allura says that they'll probably return to their home. Shiro counters that Black showed him the Galra planet and that it was- rubble. Ruins. They shrug and decide that there are enough planets that the remaining Galra could make a new home. So Keith decides to learn the language- in honor of his mother, who he'll probably never know, and for the same reason that he keeps training: to have something to do. He tries to help Coran with his various repairs and adjustments to the Castle- a ten thousand year dormancy and then non-stop war for two years not being the best maintenance anyone could ask for- but ends up mostly in the way. He tries to learn how to sew with Allura And Shiro so he can mend the rips in his jacket, but doesn't have the patience for it. He tries to learn how to cook the way Hunk does and he finds that he can do the basic Eat This To Live bit, but the whole spices and garnishes stuff goes right over his head. He gets Pidge to help him with some modifications to Red- minor stuff, some redistribution of her armor to match where Keith tends to get hit, but she stays busy working to find Lance or her family. When he has the time- makes the time- he goes down and floats near Blue. Not because anything is changing with her, just- just because- 

They're running out of ideas. 

Hunk and Pidge have to build a bigger and better radar, clearly, because the first two that they built didn't work. They send off to Olkarion for more parts, but it takes a few days for their request to get there and a few days more for the parts to arrive. They build the giant dish and equipment and stuff before they realize that the generator Pidge uses from the Castle won't support it _and_ her computer which- clearly- is not acceptable, so they have to send off for more stuff. They tailor it to Shiro's quintessence and it tracks him all the way to Arus, and then they key it to Hunk and he goes all the way to the Balmera without a hitch. They build a monitor and upload the Castle's navigation maps onto it so they can watch Coran's little orange dot trek to the local Space Mall- sans disguise, this time.  

It works, and works, and works, until it doesn't, because it only shows them Blue's sunken form down in her little self-imposed exile whenever they try to find Lance and- 

And- 

"It'll take time," Hunk says, rubbing his chin and gazing out over the water thoughtfully. "The six of us are here for the scanner to pick up on and then track. Lance is already missing, it has to find his signal somewhere out there. It'll just take time." 

They don't _have_  time. Keith thinks it every day but doesn't speak it- knows that once he gets started there won't be an end. He has to start tying his hair up when he trains, it's gotten too long in the back, and they want him just wait while they puzzle it out? 

The Howrians, for their part, are happy to have them for as long they need to stay. It's an honor, they say. Whenever Keith floats down to Blue, there's always a dozen or some of the too-long, too-thin black and red and blue and green aliens clustered around her. Just like the Arusians had worship the giant sky-fighter that had watched over their planet, the Howrians _love_  Blue. They love to be near her and bask in her presence and claim that though she doesn't speak, her contentment is palpable for them. 

He wonders about where Red's home is- tries to ask her, but she just purrs and shows him his desert shack back on Earth, sends ease and quiet and heat. And she's right- it doesn't really matter. 

Blue won't speak to him again. Her eyes don't track him when he swims in front of her. She's doesn't freeze anything or otherwise respond to his presence. He's not sure if it's better or worse. 

Ahmda tells him, when he asks, "Our legends about the Blue Lion are faint- we thought that's all they were." 

He's gone down to her palace, deeper than a human should be able to swim, and found her waiting as if she'd known he'd come eventually. 

"It's been a month and a half," he says. His voice seems too-loud to him in his bubble of air. Lance' birthday had come and gone as a day of silence amongst them. They hadn't- not a one of them- commented on it at all. Too soon. Too much feeling tangled up in it. Keith clenches his fists, "Some of your people keep saying that they can sense her. Only a Paladin should be able to talk to a Lion." 

Ahmda looks down on him, all four eyes bright and intelligent, and cocks her head, "The Blue Lion is different. That much we know for sure." 

He waits for her to continue, but she makes him ask, "What do you mean?" growling and angry and every inch the hothead Lance accuses him of being. He's not good at this, this is what Allura is for, what Shiro is for, but no one wants to talk about it, about how long it's been and how they still don't know, no one wants to talk about it and it's _killing_ him. 

"She cues the other Lions. She chooses first, and the others choose based off of that." Ahmda peers down at him and says, "Isn't that how it happened for you? She chose, and then all of you were chosen. Didn't you notice?" 

He thinks back- back to his desert shack and the feeling that something was waiting for him. He'd found a cave with lion carvings and searched it, lingering for a week before giving up on it and moving on to the next lead. Lance had walked into that cave without a thought and activated the carvings, brought them straight to Blue. 

Seven billion people on Earth and she'd picked him. He had forgotten: the only reason they'd ended up on Arus at all was because of Blue and Lance. It had been ten thousand years for Blue; waiting, watching, wishing, and it wasn't until Lance had gotten to the Garrison that Keith had started feeling stifled, started feeling the pull and allure of the desert. Everything after that- Shiro's disappearance, Keith's dropping out, Lance taking his place as a fighter pilot- it wasn't until this Cuban kid from the Varadero beaches with a million siblings and a love for the stars and a smile that filled the room that the Blue Lion had sensed anything worth caring about on their planet.

Voltron didn't choose the Paladins. Blue chose Lance. 

He's glad to be floating because he feels like he's falling. 

Ahmda nods. "It's a shame that he has gone missing. I've no doubt that he is important to all of you." 

What an understatement. How stupid. Keith says, "Can you talk to her? Can you ask her what happened?" 

"No," she says bluntly, "I won't even try. She would not speak to one of us. We are her people. The place that she rests is where the asteroid that she was carved from struck. She will always love us and this planet, but we are nothing to her in the greater scope. We are not Paladins." She tilts her head further, the angle unnatural and only compensated by her considerable neck, "Have _you_ tried talking to her? Any of you?" 

Keith turns and leaves. He doesn't- he's not gonna stand here and be condescended to by her, Queen or not, and he gets to the door of the throne room before she says, "They don't speak the way we do. You must listen closer to understand." 

Like it means anything. He doesn't even pause. 

Later, in the twilight hours that Lance adores, they all gather outside the Castle to watch the sunset. It's routine and comforting, and it's what he would have been doing, so they do it. Maybe he's still upset from Ahmda, but he breaks the silence with, "Have any of you even _tried_ to talk to Blue?" 

He doesn't _think_  he means it to be antagonistic, but he hears it come out that way and doesn't flinch from it. 

Hunk says, "I started talking to Yellow." 

Hunk, who'd had the most strained bond with his Lion, who had walled himself off with distractions and other duties and hadn't wanted to face the overwhelming presence of _Other_  in his mind. 

"He told me that she won't let them in. Any of them. She's defensive and angry and every time they try she pulls a little more away from them? I guess not really because she hasn't moved since she got here but I think you guys get what I'm trying to say here? Or I am not making sense because honestly none of this makes any sense-" 

"Hunk," Pidge says, and reaches up to pat his shoulder. Keith almost bristles at it because this is Lance's job. Lance is Hunk's rock. Let Hunk struggle without Lance here, and maybe they'll build something that actually works. 

"That's not fair," Shiro says, and Keith realizes from the looks he's getting that he'd spoken aloud. His face goes hot but he tells himself it's anger until he feels sufficiently angry to huff and head back towards the Castle. Shiro follows him, catches him by the shoulder, asks, "Hey, what the hell was that?" And he knows he should feel bad- for what he said, for how Shiro's looking at him now, but he hisses, "We should have found him by now. Nothing is working and all of you just want to-" He should stop. He should stop he should stop he should-, " _Play_  on the _beach_ and go on _vacations_ like everything is fine instead of _finding him_. We were supposed to do all this stuff _together._ He should be here for it, he fought just as much as we did. You're not trying. All of you are just happy the war is over, none of you are pushing yourselves to find him." And then, because it's how he feels and because it's what he's been thinking and because he's angry enough to say it, he repeats, " _You're not trying,_ you don't care, and he could be dead or dying, Shiro. We wouldn't have left you or Allura like this. We would have found you." 

He's panting. He's panting and sweating and his limbs are trembling as though he's in a training simulation. This is what Shiro looked like, in the Blade of Marmora simulation, when he walked away from Keith. It registers in his mind that he needs to backtrack, that he needs to patch this up, but instead he thinks about late nights and starlight and falling into bottomless depths and sweat of an altogether different kind and his face goes even hotter but it's definitely with anger as he practically snarls, "We need a new plan. Now." And stomps all the way back to his room. 

Shiro doesn't stop him this time. He decides that's for the best.

He gets to his room, to his door, and just stops a minute to breath. Red is there, sending him desert winds to cool his rage, embers, and an oasis, and shifting sand, and he looks past his door to Lance's. He doesn't decide, he just moves.

It's all untouched, from when Keith ripped through it months ago, right after they'd realized Lance was gone. His bed sheets are still on the ground _where are you_  and his bathroom door is open, shower curtain ripped back so hard it hangs only partially from the hooks _where are you_  and his table upended out of anger _where are you_  

He takes a step in so the door can close. So none of the others can see him, now, in this moment, as he really lets it wash over him. Because there'd been a moment, at the stupid upside-down swimming pools when the alarms had gone off and they'd realized that they'd just climbed back-to-back out of an elevator shaft to get here and they weren't going to get to enjoy it. And Lance had turned to him with a stupid, fake smile and the beginnings of tears in his eyes and said, "Back to work, Mullet Boy!" 

And Keith had said, "Whoa, man," because he's eloquent, or whatever, except not really because Lance had immediately gone bright red with embarrassment and scrubbed his cheeks and eyes, said, "It's nothing, alright?" 

It wasn't. If Lance was crying, then it wasn't. And Keith had told him, "Hey. I'm here for you, alright? The rivalry thing is so stupid but if that's what you like then, then it's cool, okay? But I'm here for you." 

And Lance had taken a deep breath and launched his entire body into a hug and cried and cried and cried 

And Keith wonders if he's crying now, wherever he is? Because that moment, and the ones after, wasn't in the memories that Blue gave him. She'd given him Lance's despair and Lance's homesick and Lance's worthlessness, but she hadn't given him the way Lance had gone limp and quiet in his arms after he'd finished crying, and she hadn't given him the way that Lance had stared at him afterward, waiting for? A comment? An insult? She hadn't given him the words afterwards and the compassion and understanding. And she hadn't given him the small, tentative way they'd held hands until they got back to their battle stations, still shirtless and carrying towels, fighting back the redness in their cheeks. She hadn't given him any of those moments, but that doesn't mean they weren't real. 

"They don't speak the way we do," Ahmda had told him. "You must listen closer."

And what had Blue told him?

She'd called him by name:  _Paladin-cub, fireone, Keith_. Even Red didn't call him any of those things, didn't use words to speak to him.

 _here and not here_ with the image of footsteps in snow, ending in a field of ice, nothing for as far as the eye could see, just ending as though the person walking had been snatched up from where they stood. Disappeared. 

 _where_ is _he?_ she had asked, incredulous, the essence of her wailing and screaming and frozen.

His head starts to pound  _where are you where are you where are you_ because he misses Lance so damn much, had appreciated him beyond words and he'd still underestimated the Blue Paladin and the roles he played for this Castle.

He's just made up his mind to go talk to Blue again when Allura's voice pages all of them to the command deck. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> scream at me on tumblr! or in the comments!  
> also, let me know if anything glaringly, obviously bananas sticks out to you, please?  
> <3


	5. Can't Trust Everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's starting to look like getting Lance back is going to be harder than they thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the delay! my husband is having some pretty severe health problems at current, so I haven't been writing as much as usual.

"Hey guys- _uh, guys_? Hey, if anyone can hear me,--  _hello_?" 

It's him. It's his voice cutting through the static. Keith's eyes are burning with the first word of it- Lance has sent them a message. Somehow, through the galaxies, he's managed to transmit his own distress signal. Lance- who's been stranded somewhere for months. Lance- who has very few mechanical or programming skills. Lance- who is the best of them at making plans on the fly, at adapting to the situation. 

They listen to it at least a dozen times, all of them smiling and relieved to hear his voice again, while they coordinate where the distress signal is coming from and the best way to get there. Slav is sure that the chances that their wormhole will cause them to materialize inside of an asteroid is very minor, which is reassuring, and also was not previously on their list of concerns. Coran does not want to move the entire Castle as it is apparently in some form of stasis recovery, so Keith and Hunk volunteer to go together. Keith had petitioned to go on his own, but it's smarter when they're dealing with an uncharted planet. Lance's message is so staticy, and they can blame that on the distance it traveled or there could be some sort of interference from the planet itself. 

" _Keith—_ can you come and?--" 

It's all he's wanted these past few months. Leave it to Lance to be too impatient for them to come find him. Keith's ready to go within the hour and even Hunk not being ready yet can't spoil this for him. Shiro gives him a friendly pat on the shoulder as he passes to go check over Red and Yellow's medical supplies one more time- the argument between them totally dissipated. Keith is bouncing from one foot to the next, trying to keep his grin from splitting his face because Lance is- 

They have so much to talk about. Because those first few days of holding hands? That had been the most Keith had ever expected. They'd been jerked from one battle to the next over the next couple days that it'd been disorienting. And, yeah, it was kind of exciting to be linking fingers underneath the table at their meal times, standing near the wall while the others were sparring, trying not to get caught but neither knowing why. There just wasn't time for them to talk about Lance's breakdown or their subsequent newly-forged something. They'd just had to wing it. But they'd been out for their nightly stroll to the observatory when Lance had turned to face him and Keith had read the situation all wrong but  _kissing_? With  _Lance_? It opened the doors to possibilities that the Red Paladin couldn't have imagined for himself. It had been the beginning of- well, of everything. 

And that's what keeps him going, that's the thought that makes his voice calm and even when he says he's got one last thing to do before he's ready to go, and it's what even gives him the idea to go down and talk to Blue. 

There's several Howrians lounging on her, but they leave as he approaches. Maybe it's evident that he needs to speak with her more privately, or maybe she tells them to go through whatever lessened bond she has with them. He's closer than he's been since that day in the hangar  _help me help him help him help him_  but he doesn't let the memory of it damped his mood as he tells her: "We found him. Hunk and I are leaving right now to go get him. It's a pretty far jump even by wormhole, so it's no wonder we couldn't track him." 

Her eyes stay flat, lifeless. She does not respond- in words or in images. He feels, somehow, disappointed but doesn't know if it's his feeling or if she's sending it to him. "I'll bring him back," he says, "I promise." 

She sends him unending sadness, the universe dimmer for one collapsed star, ten thousand years of waiting and loss and this is all she has to show for it? 

"Don't you get it?" He's starting to lose his patience with her, "Don't you understand? I'm going to get him right now. You'll have him back within a few hours." 

She yields at his words, stems the flow of her feelings, gives him the image of himself on the floor of her hangar after she froze the floor and felled him: _you cannot you cannot you cannot help him._  

He leaves, determined to prove her wrong. 

Red purrs in his mind when he boards her and he's laughing, "Easy there, girl," as she bursts from the Castle towards the wormhole high above them. 

Hunk's on the comms right away, "Hey, wait up!"  

Yellow is slower, more armored, but just as bright eyed as he approaches Red's side. "There's a change of plans, sort of," Hunk says, and Keith can hear his grimace, the expectation that Keith will be as explosive in the face of challenge as he's been with their inaction. So he makes the effort to keep his voice even as he asks what's going on. 

"Well," Hunk says, "It's just that a second message came through after you left. From some rebels? Said that they'd made contact with Lance but were hiding out from some Galra forces and got split up." 

Galra forces? "There's no Galra Empire anymore," Keith says, "What the hell are they chasing Lance for?" 

Shiro and Allura pop up in a corner of his control screen, like they need to reassure themselves that he's not gonna lose it again, but they're still relaxed, confident. The Princess says, "Shiro did say that their homeplanet is in ruins. They may be attempting to colonize a new one, or there may be rouge groups trying to finish what Zarkon started." 

Coran appears behind them, beaming, "Nothing that our Sharpshooter can't take care of!" 

And they're right, of course. Lance has been out there for months, taking care of himself and connecting with rebels or something? No less than he should have expected- what the hell was he even so worried about? 

The comms go out when they enter the wormhole- too much interference- but Red is humming her contentment as they zip through time and space. It's not just that she's happy for him, of course she is, but she's also eager to have the Blue Paladin back and hopefully her Sister Lion. They rely on each other, Keith muses, just as much as their Paladins do. 

He's still thinking about soft lips and ocean eyes when the wormhole ends. 

 _Home_  goes through his head, but it's not his thought. Red lets out a low whine that has Yellow cocking his head at her as they ready to renter atmosphere and gravity. It's a desert planet, but with a lot less sand than Keith had imagine: mostly rock, barren, if he's honest. He wonders what it looked like when Red was young, and she reminds him that he's already seen: miles and miles of wind-swept dunes and hidden oasis and beyond-blue sky for company. He wonders if Zarcon did this, if Red was already on board the Galra-fleet when they did it, and if there's any way for the planet to recover, but Red pushes another image into his head and it's that this planet is nothing to her compared to a shack on Earth that smells likes him. 

Hunk pops up on his screens, all tinted red from the flames coating their Lions as they spear for the planet surface. "I'm bringing us in a ways out from where Lance's message came from," he says, and this? This is Hunk's gameface. This is save-the-Balmera face, I-don't-trust-Rolo face. "I wanna see if those rebels that met Lance are nearby, or any Bad Galra." 

"Alright," Keith agrees, "I'll follow your lead." Shiro once said he'd want Keith to lead Voltron in the event of his demise  _because_ Shiro spent his gap year before the Garrison volunteering at a local theater and never let his sense of the dramatic go,  _because_  Keith could fight his way out of anything but he couldn't lead a Paladin out of a wet paper bag. He's built for instinct and gut- he's a force of nature, he needs to be pointed and unleashed, and he's happy to let Hunk do the pointing. 

So they land and they disembark. The planet is- cold. The sun is bright and unforgiving, but the ground is all brick-baked and seems to leach the warmth from the light. There are canyons and hills and ravines where the dunes once were, and they provide some shade, but mostly it's just- empty. There's no noise and no one else around. Just an empty rock planet. 

This is where Lance has been? 

"I'll be honest, dude," Hunk says, glancing at a handheld device and picking a direction to walk in, "I'm not seeing any Bad Guys around, but I'm not seeing any Good Guys, either." 

Keith's having the same thoughts, but doesn't answer with anything more than a grunt. They start hiking down into a ravine, as everything else is flat and empty- no Lance out here. No rebels and no Paladin- they've gone to ground, hiding from the Galra, for sure. 

Red sends him warm embraces and and a never-ending beach for encouragement as he dips out of her sight. Where the sun can't reach them it's even colder. The once-sand walls of the canyons are all one, solid color, and he doesn't know what that means in terms of geology or whatever, but it hits something low in his gut on Red's behalf, even though she keeps sending him indifference on the subject. There's also no caves that he and Hunk can discern, but the Yellow Paladin seems determined to find some evidence of life on this rock. They hike for feels like miles, growing colder as they do. 

The canyons are like a maze- they twist and turn and slop upwards to become the planet surface again, which means they have to hike to the next ravine and get back down into new sections. They find: some fossils, long dead and calcified; some small caves with remnants of fires, but too old to have been from Lance; and the signs of a scuffle where Hunk says the rebel's message went out: deep foot imprints, like soldiers wearing armor, and long scrapes from where someone of something was dragged, and blast-impacts of misfired weapons. There's no footprints leading to or away from the site, which isn't surprising because Hunk and Keith themselves leave no footprints on the hardened ground unless they make the effort to. 

"This isn't right," Keith says, looking around as though the answer will leap out at him. 

"Dude," Hunk says, going all quivery, "I'm not trying to jinx us or anything, but this looks like a set-up." 

Keith has a split second to snort in derision before the trap is sprung. 

And the worst part is that even after he's crumpled on the ground, even as the net tightens around them, even with Hunk's elbow in his ribs and his knees in Hunk's stomach, he still thinks it might be a defensive measure of Lance's. 

Then he sees, in the distance, a cloaking shield drop from a Galra ship. But not just a Galra ship,  _the_  Galra ship. Zarkon's personal one, the flagship that they'd destroyed him in front of months and months ago. The cloak drops from it and twin ion beams start to drag Yellow and Red into its hull, Hunk and Keith towards the Druid's platform. 

This is not real, he thinks, really struggling now, trying to get his bayard from its hip holster, trying to get his blade from its sheathe. The net constricts a little tighter with every movement until Hunk says, "Keith, buddy, we're- uh- even if we get out of this thing, how do we get to the Lions?" 

Because there they go: swallowed up into the cargo of the ship, their particle beams visible even from this- rapidly decreasing- distance, and his tether to Red is intact but she's not speaking to him, she's not answering, even as he pulls and pulls and  _pulls_  and 

" _Fuck_ ," he snarls, "What if they have  _Lance_  too?" 

Hunk might cry. But but  _but_  if they do have Lance? This works out great, because he wasn't leaving this planet without him, anyways, and he knows in his bones that once he sees the Blue Paladin the unhinged warrior bit of him is going to get turned on- Haggar, or whoever it is their stupid net is approaching. 

They sag as the net leaves the surface, dangling and jostling them as they float steadily upwards. Hunk begins to mutter to himself, some calming mantra, but Keith just twists his core to stay focused on the two figures above them. It's the same one Allura had stood on and used her Altean magic to destroy the device that drained quintessence from planets- and from their Lions. Haggar, who is at least partially Altean. Haggar, Zarkon's right hand. Keith would have expected her to take the Empire's throne for herself if she was going to continue with it at all. Who has she chosen to support, instead? 

The Galra man is tall. That's the first thing Keith notices, as their net dumps onto the floor, but that might be because he's stuck on the ground peering upwards. Tall, long white hair, and something vicious in his eyes. He says, "How kind of you to join us," and his voice is like a cat's purr. 

"Dude," Hunk whispers, and Keith realizes that he's- he's going to lose it again. He's sweating, he's almost hyperventilating because this was a  _pick up_  mission not a  _rescue_ mission and if this guy has hurt Lance- 

"Where is he?" He doesn't recognize his own voice. It's gravely and awful and a tone too close to begging. "What have you done with him?" 

Red's not coming to save him. She wrecked a Blade of Marmora base when he didn't even want her too, didn't even ask, but now he's screaming at her in his head and she's 86'd him. He can imagine the memories this brings back for her. At least she's got Yellow for company. 

"Done to him?" His eyes narrow, a shade of purple that hits too close to home. "Why ever would you think that I've done anything to him?" 

There are speakers, somewhere, in the space around them and they crackle to life with the sounds of screaming.  _Lance's_ screaming. 

The sound that comes out of Keith is not human. He is fire and sword and rage incarnate until the speakers crackle back off. 

"Ohhh," the man drawls, "You mean  _him_? The Blue Paladin? We've  _done_  quite a bit to him, I'm afraid. Sorry about that," but he smirks as he says, flips his hair over a shoulder. 

"Who  _are_  you?" Hunk demands, trembling in every limb but determined to help however he can, "We thought- we thought it was  _over_." 

Haggar's laugh is crueler than he remembers. "You kneel before the Crown Prince, worms. Show the appropriate respect." 

Prince? Prince?? Zarkon's heir? They've been idiots to think an empire could fall with one man. 

"Prince Lotor," the man supplies smoothly and steps towards them, "And you'll find me much more amenable to negotiations than my father was." 

" _What_ do you  _want_ ," he growls, still twisting and snarling and barely-contained because Hunk is- Hunk is helping, if the Yellow Paladin could just move his frikin' knee to the left, Keith could get to his blade, could get them free, could could could but hasn't, yet, " _What_  do you  _want_  with Lance?" 

Lotor actually laughs at them. "With  _him_? Nothing. He's worthless to me. Haggar's magic was meant for the Black Paladin, after all. My father, you see, wanted to reclaim his lion. He had quite the grandeur visions about what the two of them could accomplish once they were reunited. But, my father is not here and I don't think the Black Lion would take me, in any case. No, I want what has been promised to me." Lotor's purple eyes lock with Keith's, and he has the gall to  _grin_  as he says, "I want the Red Lion." 

He is fire and sword and rage incarnate and their traps cannot stop him. 

His blade of Marmora sings as soon as his fingers touch the pommel, and he rolls out of the bag already bringing it up to connect with Lotor's face. The Galra Prince stutters a step back into Haggar's reach, who teleports them to a different platform- out of reach. 

 _Where are you where are you where are you_ he sings to Red. 

"Give us Lance and we'll leave you your lives," he says. His Marmora blade flashes again into a dagger even as his bayard becomes a sword.  

Hunk is by his side in an instant, his giant bayard-gun ready to go, "Tell us where Lance is," he reaffirms. 

Haggar's pointed teeth show as she readies her arms for spell casting, says, "Wouldn't you like to know." 

Hunk fires but- two targets, one shot? He has to pick. Haggar's the obvious candidate as druid-magic starts to spark at her fingertips, but Hunk isn't one for the obvious. He fires at Lotor, blasting the prince off his feet, just before Haggar crumbles their platform and sends them falling out of the gravity-chamber of the ship- 

And straight into Yellow's open mouth.

"What the  _fuck_ ," Keith demands, bayard and dagger still in hand, intent on heading back out into space right up until the cockpit snaps shut. He has to brace himself against the wall to keep his feet under him, but Hunk is already moving to the pilot's seat.

"Where is Red? I need to get to her if we're going to stand a chance at ripping this ship apart," he says, casting out his mind towards her again. He can feel her nearby but- it's murky. There's something between his bond and hers that's stopping them from communication. 

"Uh, no way, dude. There's not gonna be any ship-ripping today, we gotta get back to the Castle."

This is not happening.

Hunk sits in his chair and it slides into place to bring him nearer to the panels and buttons and levers that will take them back to the wormhole and galaxies away from Lance and Keith-

"You can't be serious."

"Oh, I'm as serious as the plating for a pair of walnut-encrusted tuna filets," Hunk says, and Keith can feel Yellow turning away from the Galra ship, some lasers firing somewhere as Lotor undoubtedly attempts a recapture, "The dude wants Red. We can't let him get her."

He's losing his mind. He has to be. This is clearly not reality. He checks to see if he's somehow wearing that suit that the Blade of Marmora used on him one time, the one that made him hallucinate, but he's not but this still can't be real. "Lance is there! Lance is being tortured! We have to go back!" Why does he have to explain this?

Hunk still at the controls for all of a split second, then Keith sees him physically resolve himself- he sits a little straighter, his face more serious, and he says, "I know. But right now, Red's not responding to anything Yellow says to her, which means she's been jacked up by the Galra somehow. We're already out Blue, we can't afford to lose another one. We know where he is now. We can come back."

He is fire and sword and rage incarnate. He is desert and wind and plasma. He cannot be stopped, he cannot be contained, he cannot

" _Please!_ " He screams, punching the cockpit doors, "We  _have_ to save him! I'll do anything, Hunk,  _please_."

And it's Hunk's final _no_ , without even looking, that breaks him- not into violence, but into sobs.

Here, in Yellow's cockpit, feeling the Blue Paladin slip right through his fingers, is when it all comes pouring out: the shame and the guilt and the anger and the fear, until he's choking on his own tears, until he's a puddle on the ground, until he forgets his name and his heritage and his Lion. They zip through the wormhole where everything is too-stretched and too-bright and Keith barely notices, isn't even aware of himself still begging to Hunk or whoever's listening: _please_.

The universe is not listening. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i thought about splitting this into separate chapters at some point but you guys deserve a long update!


	6. I'll Met You at the Bus at Dawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith grows ever more desperate.

The same old song and dance: Hunk and Pidge are crying, Shiro is consoling, Coran is leaving the room, Allura is trying to take charge, and Keith? 

Keith doesn't have anything left to give. 

As soon as they'd docked in the Castle of Lions Hunk's tough-guy act had crumbled. Keith was still sobbing and then Hunk was hunched over him, hugging him in comfort and then for his own support as sobs starting ripping through him. "He's my best friend," he'd wailed, "I left him. I had to. I left him." 

They had stumbled from Yellow and into the arms of the Green and Black Paladins. 

Keith was the first to cut the waterworks. There wasn't enough space inside him for all of- all of  _this._  And, anyways, crying is pointless. They have to go back. There is no other option. 

He gives Shiro a meaningful look, and then, a few minutes later, a pointed one, and  _then_ , a few minutes after  _that_ , he clears his throat over the varied whimpering of Hunk and Pidge. 

"We need to go," he says, once he has everyone's attention, "Before that ship moves and we lose him again. We need to go now, all of us." 

"I'm afraid it's not that simple, my boy," Coran says and gestures all around himself, "The Castle of Lions is still in a stasis. Moving it now would be risking damage of-" 

"We need to go," Keith repeats because, obviously, they didn't hear him, they don't understand, how much were they able to catch over the comms before the wormhole? Not much, apparently. "There's this- this Prince Lotor or whatever and they have Lance. They let us hear them torturing him. We need to go now." 

"Keith, of course we're going to go get him." Shiro is playing dad again and normally? It soothes Keith to know that someone is in charge, that someone is going to set things in motion, but today? In this minute? He has to stop himself from baring his teeth, because Shiro is saying, "We just need to pump the brakes and plan this out. If Coran says we can't move the Castle-" 

"We  _need_  to  _go._ " Keith repeats a third time, and it'll be the charm or it'll be the spark because seriously? 

Pidge shoves her glasses up her face and says, "Maybe we should-" 

And the Castle trembles. All six of them exchange glances, because it feels like a Lion docking in their bay, but all of the Lions are accounted for. All of them except- 

" _Blue_ , _"_ he breathes, and just runs. 

There she is. Sitting in her hangar, eyes flashing and tail twitching. Its all the sign that he needs. 

"Look," he says, "Even she knows. We don't have to move the Castle, we can just take the Lions. But we have to go quickly or we'll miss this chance, and we might not get another one." 

It has been several long months since that Lion stood in this hangar, and Allura's eyes water at the sight. Keith thinks of Allura- sitting at the bottom of an ocean with a Lion who won't speak with her. Allura who, try as she might to hide it, has always wanted to be a Paladin. Like them. Like her father. Like the Paladins past who were so very dear to her. Allura, who should have been able to pilot Blue in Lance's absence. 

Allura cries and Keith thinks he's starting to understand. 

"You don't want him back," he says and physically recoils, takes a step backwards from them. "You don't care." 

"That's enough of that," Shiro snaps, "I thought we were past that." 

"Then why aren't any of you suited up? Why haven't we left yet?" He's hot, he feels light headed, he feels- he feels- 

"Keith, we're  _going_  but we can't go in  _blind_." 

It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make  _any_ sense, if they really care about Lance. They should already be warping, they should be halfway through their rescue, Lance is being  _tortured_ - 

"Whatever happened between you and Lance," Hunk says, eyes red-rimmed but fierce, "It doesn't give you jurisdiction over him. You're not the only one who cares." 

"I'm not the only one who-  _I'm_  not the only one-"  

"You've been  _isolating_ ," Hunk continues, his eyes hard like granite and just as unyielding, "You've been a  _huge_  jerk to  _every_ one and we've been accommodating, Keith, but you  _suck_  lately. We love Lance, too." 

"He is my  _boyfriend_ ," he roars. Allura brings a hand to her mouth, takes a step back. 

"No he  _isn't_ ," Pidge hisses, "You think he didn't  _tell_  us?" 

He's not gonna listen to this shit. He doesn't have to stand here and hear this. 

He turns on a heel and leaves. He suspects that the others stay behind to plan their rescue attempt, maybe consult with Blue if she's finally speaking again, but-  _whatever-_ he'll just go get Lance himself. He found and rescued Shiro two years ago, alone; alone until the garrison trio inserted themselves. Now he has a giant mechanized space lion at his disposal, though she isn't currently speaking to him. That'll be stop number one on his preparations. 

Red's hangar isn't far, but the mental distance between them goes on for  _miles_. Even when he's standing in front of her again she's- not unresponsive, her cockpit opens when he prompts but- 

Whatever whatever  _whatever_  

He goes to his room to pack a bag, but what does he even have to pack? He grabs some emergency ration bars that he's not gonna eat and a roll of medical gauze that he's not gonna use and goes to Lance's room because where is there left to be? 

For a long few minutes he just stands in the doorway. The bedsheets are on the floor. The table is upturned. The shower curtain is only half hanging. Evidence of Keith's panic. 

No, he thinks, and he lets his back hit the door, lets himself slide to the floor because what was he thinking? That Lance would be hiding in bed? That Lance would jump from out behind the shower curtain? What had he been thinking? It's like a flood, now, like crying on Yellow was just the dams finally breaching because now? In the darkness of Lance's room? This is the fatal blow, this will be the pain that kills him, because because  _because_  

The first time was  _so good._  It'd been here, in Lance's room, on top of these same sheets. It was  _their_  first time, but not  _the_  first time for either of them and it had taken such a load off of Keith's mind to know, to not have to hold himself to any standard besides his own, to not have to worry. They'd been sloppy. They'd been sweaty already, from training, and panting from kissing, and things had just  _progressed_  until they were naked and touching and Lance had asked  _are you sure?_  and Keith had laughed a _re you?_  And they'd taken the leap together because this is war, damnit, and who knew when they'd get another chance? They'd moved together like they'd been born to do it, like two halves coming home, and maybe? Maybe this whole Voltron thing was worth it. That's what Keith had thought when Lance's smirk became something definitively less ego and more desperate, that maybe Shiro having gone missing? Maybe dropping out of the garrison? Maybe living in the desert on his own for a year had all been worth it if he could do this with Lance every day for the rest of whatever time they had left. 

And when his world had shattered, when he'd come apart completely, lacking the strength to do anything but hold and be held, that'd been the moment that he knew it was true and he let go of the shame of it. 

It wasn't until the next morning that he'd fucked it all up. 

It takes a long time to sob himself to exhaustion, to run out of tears. When he does, he takes another long look around the room, and stands. The first thing to do is to set the table to rights and its two chairs. Then the bed sheets. He takes a broom that Lance hides in his closet and gives the room a good sweeping and dusting. He does what he can for the bathroom, cutting new holes for the shower curtain in order to hang it properly. Then he leaves, with a vow not to come back unless Lance invites him in. 

Red is ready to go already. He can't just leave, though, he needs the wormhole, so he goes back to Blue's hangar to see if they're there. They aren't.  

Blue doesn't move when he enters, not even a tail twitch. 

He sees a beach, footsteps in the sand that don't go or come from anywhere, he sees an ocean that goes on forever, he hears people laughing and shrieking but when he turns there's just- 

He would do anything, he would give  _anything_  

But life isn't a la carte and the universe, it seems, doesn't give a damn about Keith's requests. 

"I messed up," he says, "But I'm going back. I'm going to fix this." 

The Blue Lion looks at him and he feels, suddenly and very clearly, as if he's missed the point. 

"I know I told you," he tries, "That I'd bring him back. I didn't- I didn't mean to lie. But I'm going right now, and I'm not coming back without him." 

The giant mechanized space lion  _snorts_  at him. A indelicate affair that involves more life and movement than Blue's shown in over a month, so he attempts not to take offense. 

She tells him  _you cannot_ and he screams, "I know, alright?" And he stands there, panting and angry all over again because he is fire and rage incarnate, he is all of the things that cannot be touched without being hurt, and he says, "I know you don't think I can help him, but I will," and he leaves. 

Like,  _leaves_  leaves. And it's so easy it should be a new hurt, a different hurt, but he gets into Red and he connects with the control room and he doesn't even have to look at any of them, doesn't have to stop steering Red out of the Castle, to tell them what he wants. And they do it. A wormhole appears and Allura tells him, "Be careful," just before he warps. 

Shows what she knows, he thinks as everything goes stretchy and bright. Of course he's not going to be careful. He's got an empire to topple and a Paladin to save. 

At the end of the wormhole is an unending ocean of stars, and a galra ship like an island. 

He's going to turn it all to ash. 


	7. Princes and Paupers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lotor and Keith have a heart-to-heart, of a sort.

This is too easy. 

He does haven't the cloaking abilities of Green, but Red's speed is the stuff of legends, and he's able to trace a zig-zag pattern to the Galra ship that hopefully is erratic enough to throw off any sensors. He's ready to fire on sight on anything that comes between him and his goal- but nothing does. 

And it's not because  _whoever_  is finally listening to his pleas, it's because nothing nothing nothing can stop him, touch him, get between him and Lance, not when he's finally on the right track. 

He docks Red on the Druid platform, to be better accessible when he makes his escape with Lance in tow, and because he's not sure if he leaves her somewhere else that she'll come when he calls. There's a wall around her like she's keeping him out- but he can still feel their mental tether, so it can't be all that bad. A mystery for another day. Lance is so in-tuned to Blue, so bonded to her, he can help Keith puzzle this out. Later, after, when it's safe. 

So he docks her, pats one paw in farewell and for luck, and infiltrates the ship. No sirens, no alarms, no guards in his path,  _yes_ , this is like fate, this is like Meant To Be, this is everything the mission earlier could have been if Hunk weren't such a coward. 

Where do hostages go on a Galra ship? 

He has to take out a few androids to get into what seems like a control room. It has a map on the control board that has some very limited, basic Galra writing on it. He's not yet fluent but this? This is too easy. His hands still works on all the palm scanners, and in no time he's on his way to what was marked in clearly with several words, one of which he recognizes as "Voltron" and another as "prisoner," which is good enough for him. Nothing nothing nothing can touch him, plasma-fire-paladin that he is, he thinks, and forgets that he and Red aren't speaking when he tries to sing it to her. 

Walls and circles and feedbacks that don't feed to anywhere, but she's right on the other side, a familiar weight and presence and there'll be time later to figure it out is what's on Keith's mind as he opens the final door. 

He'd expected the worst- a torture room. Lance on a table that Keith could break literally and symbolically, some grotesque devices to shatter before making their grand escape. At best a prison, some room filled with cells that he'd have to walk past, promising without surety that the Paladins would be back to rescue all of them. 

What he doesn't expect is- this is a hangar. Not just a hangar, this is the hanger he found Red in over two years ago. She'd been impassive, stoic, hadn't really chosen him until he'd almost died over it. She'd looked- she'd looked like she does now, sitting in here, on the exact opposite side of the ship he'd left her at, feet folded beneath her like she has no intention of moving. 

"Red," he says, because maybe she's done it for him? He'd asked her, hadn't he? 

 _Will you help me if I ask? It's important to me,_  he'd said. Has she already done it? Because there's nothing else here, there's nothing in the room besides them, there's nowhere for the  _voltron_  and  _prisoner_  that he'd read in the control room. There's no other answer that doesn't leave him broken-hearted.

"You know, I didn't think you'd fall for it." 

This is a dream, he thinks. This is the part where he wakes up and finds that Lance never left, that the past weeks have been a nightmare. It explains why this was so easy, too easy: it's all a dream. A fantasy. Lance is going to laugh so hard when Keith tells him about this. He turns slowly, doesn't even bother to arm himself as he faces Lotor. Why draw a weapon against a dream? 

Then the first shot hits him.

Laser that cuts through his armor, but a shot to the side, a shot that's meant to hurt, not kill. 

Dream-wounds don't hurt like this. 

He swings into motion without thought, throws his dagger into the weapon, shattering it, as he draws his bayard and advances. A trick. A stupid trick, a childish ploy, how did he fall for this? Where are they really holding Lance? Even as Lotor draws his own sword, parries Keith's initial blow, he's trying to think of the control room, of the map, of what the words on it meant and which one might be the key. 

Then Red stands and slams her tail between them and he hits the ground hard enough to knock the thoughts from his head completely. 

Lotor is unfazed, uninjured. Keith watches him through blurred eyes as the Galra Prince walks toward him. His pace is leisurely, winding, unhurried. He should be quivering in fear of Red, he should be running screaming from the room. Keith reaches out to her and she's  _right there_  on the other side of a mental wall that goes on and on and on without end 

" _What did you do_ ," he growls because, oh, no. Oh, Red. "What did you  _do_ to her?" 

"Does it matter?" Lotor asks with that despicable, ridiculous smirk. He hasn't even brought Haggar. He doesn't need her if Red is on his side. "How, exactly, did you think the Yellow Lion escaped?" 

Oh, no. Oh, Red. 

"You didn't even consider, did you," Lotor drawls, and lets his sword drag along the floor. Lazy. Incautious. The noise of the metal sword on the metal flooring screeches through Keith's ears, sharpens his focus so he can note the gait, note how Lotor's eyes are already gleaming with victory. A predator eyeing dinner that doesn't know it's dead yet, "You didn't think that if Druid Magic could sap quintessence from planets that it might take control of a Lion just as easily? That it might hack them as your Green Paladin hacks my data bases?" 

Keith had brought her here. Here, where she'd sat for ten thousand years in grief after her last paladin was murdered, where she'd promised to never be. He'd brought her here. He'd done this. 

He starts pushing against their mental barrier in earnest now that he knows what it is. Whatever Lotor has done hasn't severed the bond between them, she's still  _there_  he just has to get to her and this nightmare will be over. 

Like he can read Keith's mind, Lotor takes the few remaining steps between them and lifts his sword, then hesitates and lowers it again. "I'll admit, it's a temporary measure; another few hours at best. I'll have to kill you before then, but I haven't quite decided how to do it." Keith tries to edge away from him, but the first twitch of his legs sends pain straight through the wound in his side, and he knows he's only going to have the energy to do this once. It's not about winning anymore, it's survival, and Keith's always played that game far too closely for anyone's comfort. It's what drew Red to him. 

Will she choose Lotor once Keith's dead? She'd said she wouldn't sit on this ship again, she'd said she'd raze galaxies and burn herself out for him, but how much of that can she actually do if he's already gone? 

"Do you even  _have_  Lance?" He has to ask, now, while he has the energy and Lotor is being indulgent. "Where is he?" 

Lotor laughs and draws a device from a pocket, tosses it to Keith's feet. It switches on as it hits the floor, to the sound of Lance's screaming. Keith stares at it, horrified, but it stops after only a few seconds, changes to, "Thank you, Keith. Now can you come and unchain me?" There's a mechanical whirring, and then, "How about we just lay low and you don't blow our cover?" More whirring, and Lance screaming again, but now Keith hears it for what it is: This is Lance during the fight with the RoboBeast on the Balmara. More whirring and more Lance, more- 

"You intercepted our communications?" 

Lotor laughs, "Of course we did. All of Haggar's beasts have this ability- we were using it to study you." 

They never- they  _never_ \- and he brought  _Red_ here for this? 

"Where  _is_  he," he repeats, not because he expects an answer but because this is his last chance. He brings his legs up under him as though it eases the pain in his wound. Lotor's eyes follow the movement and gleam even sharper. He knows he looks like an animal tending its wounds, he knows he looks vulnerable, but he knows his center of gravity is beneath him, now, and that the bayard in his hand looks inconspicuous right up until it morphs into a blade. He's always walked a thin line where his own life is concerned, but this isn't about him. It's about Red, who won't survive this kind of pain again. It's about Lance, who's still out there somewhere. It's about Voltron, who still needs to defeat this  _fucking_  empire that doesn’t know how to quit while it's ahead. 

Lotor says, oblivious, "I've been wondering that myself. So little is known about the Druid magic, you know. Haggar meant to lock your little human cohort in the Black Lion's liminal space. But your self-aggrandizing friend took the blast instead." He shrugs, "Who knows? Who cares? It won't matter once I kill you."  

And it's the shrug, it's the impatient little toss of his hair, it's the chance Keith needs. 

 _I am fire and blade and rage_ , he reminds himself as he surges upwards, sword in hand, screaming through the pain in his side,  _I burn when_ _touched,_ as the pommel meets Lotor's temple, knocking him off balance just enough, and just enough is all Keith needs as he raises for the final blow, because Red might intervene even as he sings and sings and sings to her  _we are fire-things; we cannot be contained_  

So it's not a surprise when all the air goes out of the room. 

He snarls as his feet skid backward a few meters before he plunges his sword into the floor and hangs on for dear life. Lotor, one hand staunching a trail of blood from the side of his face, says, " _Haggar!" a_ nd disappears in the teleportation of her people. And that's fine because Lotor doesn't even know, doesn't even care where the Blue Paladin is, so let him go, what does it matter? 

And Red? Somewhere behind him, probably the reason he's being sucked out into space right now? Lotor said it might take 'a few hours' for whatever Druid crap he's done to her to wear off. Which is great- that it's not permanent, that she'll come back to herself, but the _bitch_ of the matter is whether or not he'll be crushed between asteroids somewhere in the vastness of space by then? Because his sword isn't going to hold much longer without gravity holding it down. It was stupid, so stupid, to bring her when he knew something was wrong, when he felt that she was off, and yet and yet and yet-

He figures, later, that he can be excused for his surprise when Pidge's voice says over his comms, "Are you just going to hang there all day?" 

And he looks over his shoulder, not into the black abyss of space like he'd expected, but into the eyes of the Blue Lion. 

 _Paladin-cub_ she says, half her body in the huge hole that's she torn, all icy-determination and wind chill and if he couldn't clearly see the visor in front of him he'd doubt his oxygen supply because this is past impossible. She moves toward him and the ship rocks, slamming him against the floor and then back again. He hisses in pain and she stills. _Fire-cub, Keith_   and there's a whine to her words, as though she feels bad. His grip on his sword is like a vice because- this has got to be a delusion. Maybe Lotor already killed him and this is some last-breath hallucination.  _Let me let me let me help you_ and it's still ice, still skidding and cutting, but there's a promise underneath of things to come.

Hunk says, "We've got Red!" And Keith's focus goes past Blue to where the Black Lion and the Yellow are restraining their sister- teeth and claws and tails lashing as they force her further from the ship. He strains against the wall between them and- yes- it is thinner, he can feel- rage, and confusion, and he can see whirls and darkness around her. He sends her: calm, smoldering embers, a night sky lit with nothing but her eyes,  _you're safe you're safe you're safe._  

 _I_ _'m here_. 

He doesn't know- he can't know how much of that actually gets through to her, but Red quiets, allows herself to be sheparded, not totally _his_ again but better. Blue hums low in her chest, approving and encouraging all at once. He doesn't have to wonder what it means that's she's even here, that she's rallied herself from whatever trance she's been in. Lotor didn't know where Lance had gone, but he's starting to think that he might- that he's really known all along.

Against every instinct, he lets go. Somewhere in his heart he knows that Blue will catch him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not gonna lie, this was so rushed! I really wanted to finish before the new season comes out but it looks like we have two more chapters to go. I'm going to try to bang them out today if possible!!  
> I hope that everyone was sufficiently surprised that Lance STILL isn't where we thought he was! I'm trying my hand at foreshadowing here- let me know what you thought about it!

**Author's Note:**

> this is gonna get a lot more sad before it gets any better, sorrynotsorry.  
> scream at me on tumblr!


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